>> i'll read one more little select that tells you what it was like at akamai at that time. this was the time again right at the height of the do tcom boom. and akamai technologies was like a lot of other.com businesses at

the time and exciting place to be. akamai in cambridge was a nondescript cluster of cubicles and offices that had all the trappings of a trend started. whiz kids were barely old enough to order a beer came to work on roller blades and skateboards. every thursday a delivery truck had ice cream, popcorn, soda and frozen pizzas. a group of programmers not as the jafa weeds for all matters spent time producing interface and graphics and taking naps in the hammock suspended from the ceiling. a student at mit was one of them. he recalled juggling coursework with a part-time job at akamai were who worked the overnight shift overseeing operations. he said the office was hopping at all hours people rolling around in chairs, tossing footballs and microwaving an endless supply of burritos.

we would be microwaving all night he said. there was so much energy. he didn't realize how exhausted you were. it wasn't uncommon to see to what tossing a frisbee or playing miniature golf in between a few desks. the atmosphere at akamai was so fun and intoxicating it became easy for people to lose track of time. so if it was this very exciting time, and the company, again, just rocketed to the top and quickly earned customers that were big names on the web like cnn and yahoo!, probably in 1987 when danny was in his late 20s, steve jobs called up and asked if he could buy the company. so danny's story is spectacular in so many ways. and so the ending to his personal story is not a large part of the book but it is

obviously one that people asked a lot about because it is true that danny was quite possibly the very first victim of the nine 9/11 attacks. we don't know exactly what happened on that day, we never will, but what we do know from the evidence that was gathered by the 9/11 commission and some very harrowing and courageous phone calls that the flight attendants were on that flight made to the ground before the flight was steered into the new york air space and crash. we know that passenger in 90 was danny's seat. he was on his way to los angeles for to los angeles for businessman, was engaged in a struggle with one of the terrace and was killed when somebody stabbestab him from behind. he was only 31 and he left behind a wife and two children. in another tragic twist of irony, that day, through so much of what any predicted for the internet to be true. that day was the web equivalent of a 100 year flood.

news organizations, federal agencies turn to the internet for information about the disaster that was unfolding. and websites for crashing, phone lines were down. and in his short time, and he had always predicted it would be a time when internet could not handle the traffic that would come its way, and promised this technology would work to keep these sites live when that happen. that day, even though the company was already struggling, it was after the dot com bubble burst. the company was struggling financially. they lost the heart and soul of the company but they worked through the next two days and they kept a lot of these websites life, like cnn. if you logged on that day, you may have noticed it went down but a few hours later it was back up and stayed life for the next few days, and provided an amazing amount of information, largely because of the technology that they first wrote.

that's probably enough about this story, but it's just great to be here tonight to talk about his story. i hope that really take away from the book is this idea that, you know, there's a quote in the book that i quote, the father of computer science as this wonderful thought which is that an algorithm must be seen to be believed. and i love that, because when danny wrote these algorithms as a starving, struggling grad student, there were a lot of people who didn't see the beauty in them or who didn't believe what he was proposing to be possible. they were academics conferences that rejected his paper, and professors who said this is is crazy. for is crazy. the company's ascent which are proposing cannot be done. please leave. and he knew and he had faith in his big idea. and so i think the take away

from the book, i hope, is to inspire anybody with an idea that's greater than themselves to just go ahead and pursue it, no matter what anybody says. and put everything into it, and hopefully it works out. so thanks. thank you so much for listening. [applause] >> i thought maybe to talk a little bit about the challenges you faced. it seems like this would be a tough story to follow him without the math and science experience. as a layperson to get into some of this, i was curious how you approached out, and how you're able to. >> it's a great question and it was intimidating at first. the first part of it was that i was writing about all these

people, many of the characters in the book, almost all of them are still living and they're still working in the field of computer science. they are professors at mit. they are engineers at google and microsoft, and all very, very smart people. and when i first started this book and i said, i'm writing this book about danny lewin and tom, everybody would say, the first thing you think is oh, your writing -- tom, smartest i've ever met. this is coming from a ph.d at mit and a thinking should i read write about this person that even thinks is the smartest person they ever met? the wonderful thing about writing about all these people is that, tom is the professor and has been for so long, and he was really good at sitting down with me and explain what the company does and what danny wrote. and in layman's terms. and one of danny's best friends actually it was a marketer for

the company, he didn't understand algorithms and he was someone hired to do all the algorithms for the company. he said my job was to explained when my grandmother could. so that was kind of my take for the book was if i can explain this in the way and, in a, i used basic analogies in the book like the pony express, that my grandmother could understand, then i would succeed. so i just approached it from ground level and i figured -- i approached it the way i approached any difficult topics in reporting, mike and i would yojust say to myself this is jut as complicated as political gerrymandering, or, you know, treatment for cancer or gene therapy for any story that i've done where if you're interested enough, you can take it down to basic level. but i couldn't have done it without the help of everybody at akamai and computer scientist who walked me through a lot of the language when i was frankly, completely lost. spent how much time did you

spend in israel? i guess you're speaking with people who are highly educated so there's probably not a language barrier there. but i was curious. >> no language barrier. the barrier at the beginning of the book was the fact that danny's family was reluctant to have his story told. and that was a barrier that i really, i thought that if i couldn't, if i couldn't sit down and meet him and talk to them about the book, in some ways get their blessings it would be very difficult to write. and so the first thing i did for even really started writing the book was to go to israel and meet his family. i had no idea what to expect it they are very religious people. they are lovely people, warm, incredibly intelligent. both of his parents are doctors. a practice in jerusalem, and his brothers are extremely successful in business and high-tech but they didn't tell me much more than, will meet

with you in jerusalem. so i sort of had this address in jerusalem, and i've never been to israel before and i don't speak in hebrew. the first they did was sit there with him and i think really what i try to do was explain to them that the story i wanted to tell wasn't the story of how he died, which would be a part of the book, and they wanted it to be, but it was a story of how we live. i told them that i had spent a couple of months with my coproducers talking to all these people who said, just because of danny, i've done this, i've done this, i've started this company. i never thought he could. i said, you realize how your son has changed all these people's lives. and with that they kind of said okay. i only spent a week an issue. i wish i could've spent more time there.

i visited the company were some of his professors are still there, and still remember him like it was yesterday. it was really amazing because he only spent three years there. >> cool. i'm going to open up to other questions from audience. i promised my friend if he passed around an e-mail list, i would let him -- i hope all of you will sign up if you're not on already, he could ask the first question. >> i had a really great time reading your book, and there was one part of the book which did interest me, which you went through very quickly and i wanted to get some more calls what happened. and it was the period of time after tom and danny were able to build the model that they actually have the algorithm, but now they have to actually get it

to work. in other words, they have to transferred over to the servers. jumping what's on a whiteboard, you know, onto the computers and to make these electrons to the magic was, to me, a really, really impressive part of what they did. and from what it sounded like, in the book at least, that a bunch of undergrads get over the summer because they were rewarded with some star trek stuff. and i wanted you to tell me, tell us a little more about those two months. you know, was it just a bunch of undergrads? i mean, it sounds amazing. >> that's a really good question and it's one i really hit at 100 the book because i, myself, could not understand -- and i had danny's thesis in my hands and i would see on this meant that i couldn't understand how that got the servers around the world. and then to the system that --

akamai today, has about 30% of the world's internet traffic. you just don't see it. so use the word magic and i think it is a good word because you don't see it. and because so much of a power in it is the myth. but to answer your question, so that summer danny and tom had this idea. danny wrote his master's thesis. they submitted -- it wasn't anything. but then they had some help from some friends in the business school, who said, you know, what you are saying and what you're doing could have a practical application if you turn into a business. and that's what even dan and tom had a big learning curve, and they described how , described how to go to the library and check of this book, this is one

of one. these guys are academics. they got a lot of help from some folks at sloan, some friends, bright people who believed in them. essentially yes, they did then say, we're going to build a prototype. they had already patented the algorithm, which was early in the process. but then they said they'll build a prototype and we're going to program the servers using these algorithms with this intelligence software that will be able to circumvent the traffic and route data effectively in content. and how exactly they did that come i don't know because it was the magic of programmers. these guys were undergraduates at mit. i say guys. they were all guys, the programmers at that time. apparently the programming isn't the hardest part. i mean, it was a lot of long, late nights but they created a prototype essentially by using

different floors of mit's lab for computer science but the seventh floor with tears. 64 was london. the fifth floor was new york and they put the servers on this floor and simulate these flows of web traffic. by the end of summer they realize that the more data and information they load into the system, the better it works. that was just this incredible moment where danny was at bell labs that some are doing an internship and pay the bills, but they called and said hey, this thing is working. that's when they realize that we could have a business model there. but it wasn't a bad a lot of money that they program the servers and placed them around the world. [inaudible] >> they were computer scientists. they were programmers. >> next question. >> yes, thank you very much for your talk, enjoyable, and really

easy to picture everything you are describing. i'm wondering how you went about the nuts and bolts of recording, especially this difficult information. do you take shorthand? a recorded? what did you do to capture it? >> that's a good question. i get that a lot and, like writing classes and as a journalist. people sometimes look at you nervously in their giving you an interview in your taking notes, like she can possibly be riding on this correctly. i.t. shorthand but i record it every end with a digital tape recorder. so i can go back and put on my computer and have the files there. and transcript every word, you know, precisely. and that's pretty much the secret. i have both though because i've had that experience as a reporter where i've gone out with a tape recorder that failed

somehow, and so i'll never make that mistake again. i always have a pen and paper with me as well. but yeah, tape recordings. i interviewed almost 120 people for the book, and it was either tape-recorded in person i said that recorder on my phone so i could digitally record the phone calls and keep all the files. that's always important when you're writing a book about people who are in positions of prominence in case they ever come back and say they were misquoted or anything like that. that was important to me. >> i want to ask a question, so this is obviously a very complicated subject, at least what they needed. i wondered as a writer what inspired you, that this is something that you didn't connect with, he said you weren't well-versed in math. what was it that made you inspired to write the book? >> great question.

it was the person. you know, it's interesting writing about somebody, you know, spending two years, like inhabiting the life of this character who was so large to everybody who knew him. but i think that the answer your question, i decided to write about him after, again we did this documentary and attribute to them, and i kind of realized early on that we would be sitting in them with these people. i mean, seasoned corporate executives of huge fortune 500 companies, legendary professors at mit, commanders in the israeli army. every single one of them would look at me and say that this person that bennett 10 years ago, 12 years ago, inspired them to do something today. and i guess, you know, i just

felt like that was so unusual for somebody his age. you know, to have died tragically at age 31 but then left behind this incredible, not only the company and a set of algorithms and this technology that survives today, but more inspired to me was all these people who said they couldn't put their finger on it but when he walked into a room he just changed the dynamics and made them feel like they could accomplish something. and the best part of that was, i didn't affect how he was so confident that when danny and as it went out with his whiteboard and his mit academic language, you know, people were very confused and didn't really understand. but a few people said to me, you know, he created in them this idea that they did know what it was but a new they had to have it. that was really funny to me. these are people who were writing checks or a lot of money and they didn't really

understand it, that they just got the sense that this guy was going to be big, and that was just fascinating to me. >> you said he was not that into business, and was more of a scientist. somewhat to people -- what was the trajectory, what with someone who would've been the google ceo type, or someone who is committed to like science and things like that? >> well, i got a lot of different answers. i think in some ways that's the kind of heartbreaking question, because everybody who knew him even for five minutes would also say to me that they were left wondering what he could have done. and pretty much everybody unanimously who i interviewed and also people who knew him, you know, in all different arenas from israel to hear, said

that they have no doubt that he would've been a household name today. and i do think that's, i think absolutely would have been. but when you ask the question about sort of what he could've done, that timmy is also fascinating because he was so successful in so many areas of his life. he would have never been satisfied just to stay at the company he created. in fact, when he had -- after the ipo the company, one of the first things he did was to go reenrolled to get his ph.d which never finished because left to go start the company. so he really had -- and somebody told me actually that they asked him, they said, it's going to be so easy for you to go back to mit and to your ph.d. all you have to do is write up the secret thoughts of the company and you'll have your ph.d. he looked at them and said, no way. i would never do that. i had to come up with this great

idea. he was already struggling with what that would be. and so he was never, he moved so fast. that i think it's, he really could accomplish really great things, and so many people notice him from an early age. i spoke with the cofounder of yahoo!, and he told me that tens of thousands of people come to his officers from the first few years of yahoo!'s big boom, and he remembered danny and thought, you know, he would've been -- for what it's worth people known. by people in israel also said he could've come back, like some people, great people like netanyahu who spent time in the army also spent time at mit, could have gone back and had a great career in politics in israel. he was very political and he loved the country. i think he no doubt would've gone back to israel at some point and done something amazing there, too.

so i don't -- >> i know we had one in the front. >> how did they come up with the name akamai? >> a great question actually. is part of the story. they came up with the name -- i think it's just a symbolic to the do tcom boom. even mind they founded the company wind, you know, the big companies were amazon.com and ebay, and names that did not necessarily make sense. they weren't sort of traditional blue-chip company names. so at first after the company was called cachet, which were that this double entendre of being a cachet of cool, but also cache of technology. so we can rent instead that section a terrible name. we really need to make this a lot cooler, and it was danny's best friend who was the marketing officer of the company said, you know, what about, something i don't know, hawaiian? it was literally that sort of

impulsive. and he had some ties to hawaii, this friend of his, and they opened up a dictionary and started leafing through and found a whole bunch of boards. and akamai met, our means and hawaiian clever, cool, smart. and so that was the name. they came up with a list of a bunch of hawaiian words, and then that was it. >> speaking of clever, cool, and smart, i know all of your fans are wanting to know what's next for you. could you tell us? >> what's next? okay. i don't know yet. i'm actually just, well, the book just came out two weeks ago, i'd love to write another book and i would love to expand on danny's story in some way. i don't know what that will be, but i think it has potentially

life beyond the book. and so, just thinking about it, i'm very hesitant to, unit come you spend so much time on this story and in the book comes out and then, i don't know. i would liken it may be to my kids are little but a kid leaving for college for something. i don't really want to let go. so i will probably find someone i hope to continue working with the story in some way. >> a movie version. >> sure, maybe. >> i know, speaking of the fans, all of your fans want to have a chance to greet her and signed. we're doing a book signing at this legislative thank you so much for coming. and thanks to all of you. [applause] >> and we have a little present for you. congratulations. >> i really appreciate it. thank you. [applause]

>> tv is on facebook. like us to interact with booktv gas and yours. watch videos and get up-to-date information on events. facebook.com/booktv. >> this fall marks booktv 15th anniversary and this weekend we look back at 2006 the john grisham first nonfiction title which report on a murder case in oklahoma was on the bestsellers list that year as well as then senator barack obama spoke on national politics, the audacity of hope. >> i would like to start a conversation and this brings me to against the larger point, about what citizenship means. and what obligations to each other. and how do we create a stronger link between the decision-making in washington